Read Online Dating da Vinci by Malena Lott - Free Book Online

with Deacon Friar before our eyes ever met. When they did, I found his to be kind, chocolate-brown eyes beneath dark brows. He wore glasses with tiny silver frames accentuating what already seemed a very intellectual face. He carried himself with ease, and as his warm handshake met my cold hands, I instantly felt him to be my spiritual superior. If spirituality grew along the lines of biology, mine would be considered a toddler, able only to articulate that I believed, but unable to verbalize a deeper understanding of what it was exactly that I believed.
    To my surprise, I found it easy to open up to Deacon Friar, how my parents had been lapsed Episcopalians before being moved by the sunshine spirituality offered by the megachurch lifestyle: non-denominational, 100 percent rah-rah Christianity.
    We entered a small courtyard with luxurious gardens and a stone path that led to a fountain with two angels. The courtyard itself might resemble Gabriella's idea of Heaven. In the last two years, I had lost all sense of beauty, but sitting amidst the majesty of nature, I could feel the appreciation for it stir within me.
    “So Gabriella told me about your loss. Joel, right? My son's name is Joel,” he said.
    Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them back. I didn't get to hear his name said aloud enough. “Yes, Joel. He was thirty-eight. His fortieth birthday would've been in a few weeks, on September 30th, a week before the anniversary of his death.”
    “What did you do for his last birthday? When he was alive.”
    His question surprised me. I thought back. “Well, Joel made a big deal of birthdays. He was an only child, so to say his parents didn't spoil him would be an understatement. So we didn't have birth days , we had birthday weeks . Every day the birthday boy, or girl in my case,would get to pick one fun thing to do each day, ending with a big party on your actual birthdate.”
    “Sounds like a joyful spirit. You had at least four fun weeks of celebration during the year.”
    “Oh, that's not all. He was really into decorating for the holidays. Not just the usual ones, either. Christmas, of course, Griswold lights and all. Halloween was one of his favorites—orange lights, lots of spider webs and dressing in costume to trick or treat with the boys. For the Fourth of July, he would buy out the fireworks stand and we would go out into the country and create our own fireworks show. And for Easter, Joel enjoyed hiding the eggs as much as the kids enjoyed finding them.”
    Deacon Friar dug in his pocket and handed me five shiny pennies. “When I leave, I want you to think long and hard about the five wishes you want most of all to come true. Then when you're ready, you can cast them into the fountain. I like to call them penny prayers. Most people are uncomfortable with the act of praying, and even for devout Christians, praying can be very difficult after you've lost the person you were closest to on earth. So I've found the penny method works.”
    I stared at the pennies in my hand. I get wishes? Wishes beyond just wanting Joel to come back, for the past to have never happened?
    “This is where I'm stuck,” I said. “I seem to have lost all of my dreams when Joel died. We had it all figured out, you know? That we were going to go to Hawaii for his fortieth birthday. That we were going to learn to flamenco dance when the kids were older. That we were going to take a road trip on Route 66. Everything centered around us . I was always more into the ‘we‘ than the ‘me.‘ And now that it's just me, I'm lost.”
    The deacon rested his chin on his hand, looking like The Thinker . “It's been ten years since I lost my wife. If you're hoping that the grief will go away, that you'll be able to move on from missing your husband,then you'll be disappointed. That will never go away. But if you mean you are ready to start enjoying life again, finding pleasure beyond the pain, then that is possible. But I gathered from